Korean stock market rebounds in a V-shape! Strike comes to an abrupt halt, chip giants drive the rally

Golden Finance, May 18 - The South Korean stock market experienced another V-shaped reversal: the Korea Composite Index surged nearly 2% to 7,636.2 points, after dropping as much as 4.68% to 7,142.71 points at the open. Samsung Electronics rebounded from a decline of more than 3% to rally 6.65%; SK hynix also reversed from a nearly 5% drop to a gain of over 4%. On the news front, the Suwon District Court of South Korea today approved part of an injunction request filed by Samsung Electronics, ordering the company’s labor union to ensure that the upcoming general strike “does not affect production” and “does not result in damage to raw materials for this globally important memory chip manufacturer.” If the Samsung union fails to comply with the court order, the South Korean court will impose a fine of about 100 million won per day. According to Yonhap News Agency, this has effectively put an emergency brake on Samsung Electronics’ largest strike plan in history.